As a professional weaver, I'm in a constant state of changing what's on the loom: planning a project, dyeing yarn for the project, warping the loom with that new yarn, weaving, finishing, and so on. Blogging is a way for me to share the process, and a way for me to keep track of what I did when.

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Sunday, June 08, 2008

Beaming the Fire Series Warp

I'm almost finished beaming the fire series warp. I'd have finished sooner, but we spent a couple of days with friends in Napa, attending the Napa Vally Wine Auction festivities. Which took a day to recover from. There were wine-and-food pairings under tents in one area featuring many of the best-known Napa area restaurants and wineries (lots of white wines and crisp, dry rose wines), and barrel tastings (mostly cabernetsauvignon and cab blends) indoors. I got to meet Thomas Keller of French Laundry fame, who served a snow cone consisting of marinated shrimps on top of salty granita, topped with a rich coconut milk foam - fabulous combination of tastes and textures! Anyway, we snacked and sipped to our hearts' content, and spent the rest of the afternoon napping.

So, back in the studio, here's the warping setup:

The two looms are at right angles to each other, each on one side of a rectangle of floor space set aside for warping tasks. I've made a practice of beaming the outer two sections of each warp first, then filling the inner sections. This is because with the interleaved warps, I thread the selvedge ends all in one color. There was one warp, a few years back, where I wound the sections from 1 through 10, and when I got to the last bit of section 10, I didn't have enough of color A for the selvedge, and had to thread that selvedge in color B instead. I thought it looked odd, but a weaving friend said to call it a design feature, not a flaw, and the folks who bought those scarves bought the "design feature" story too...

In any case, now I always make sure to do the selvedge sections first. Then, if I run out of color A, I simply drop some ends from one of the middle sections. Since my interleaved designs are not symmetrical, nobody'll ever know if it's a few threads narrower than the original plan. As long as I keep the color sequence going, all is well.

For this warp, the color sequence of scarlet and fuchsia is pretty intense. As the sections build up on the warping wheel, there's an almost irridescent look to the bundle of threads. I'm hoping the woven cloth will also have that quality.

1 comment:

Sandra, thanks for the photo of your beautiful studio. It is an inspiration. Currently I do not have the kind of space you do, and weave simple stuff (rag rugs mainly) because of limited weaving time (due to day job and volunteering), but I have set my 8-harness Glimakra up with a sectional beam. I've only ever put on one (really long) warp and am thinking about the next one (a few more rugs to go on this one.) I plan to warp using a tension box and spool rack from front to back. Do you warp to the back beam first with your wheel?

About Me

I am a professional weaver, specializing in complex weaves using fine threads. Most of my studio work consists of scarves, shawls, and wraps woven on a 48-inch, 24-shaft computer-assisted AVL dobby loom or wall art woven on a 48-inch, 1,440-heddle AVL jacquard loom. I exhibit and sell my work through high-end retail craft shows such as the Smithsonian Craft Show, the American Craft Council San Francisco show, and several smaller regional and local fine craft shows.